Biosorption of uranium by magnetically modified Rhodotorula glutinis

Adsorption of uranium from aqueous solution onto the magnetically modified yeast cell, Rhodotorula glutinis, was investigated in a batch system. Factors influencing sorption such as initial solution pH, biomass dosage, contact time, temperature, initial uranium concentration and other common cations were analyzed. Sorption isotherm, kinetic and thermodynamic studies of uranium on magnetically modified R. glutinis were also carried out. The temperature dependent equilibrium data agreed well with the Langmuir model. Kinetic data obtained at different temperatures were simulated using pseudo-first-order and pseudo-second-order kinetic models, the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was found to describe the data better with correlation coefficients near 1.0. The thermodynamic parameters, ΔH°, ΔS° and ΔG° were calculated from the sorption data gained at different temperatures. These thermodynamic parameters showed that the sorption process was endothermic and spontaneous. All results indicated that magnetically modified R. glutinis can be a potential sorbent for uranium wastewater treatment.

► Uranium sorption was performed by using magnetically modified Rhodotorula glutinis.
► The effect of pH, time, temperature, etc. on uranium sorption was studied in detail.
► Adsorption isotherm, kinetic and thermodynamic modeling was also carried out.
► All results show that this magnetic biosorbent was favorable for uranium.